State of the town of Fuentes d'Oñoro after the battle—The wounded—Visit
to an amputating hospital—General Brennier’s escape from
Almeida—Booty in the camp.
As soon as the town of Fuentes d'Oñoro was completely cleared of the
enemy, we sheltered ourselves in the best manner we could behind the
walls, and at the angles of the different streets; but this was a task
not easy to be accomplished, the French batteries continuing to fire
with much effect. Nevertheless, Sir Edward Pakenham remained on
horseback, riding through the streets with that daring bravery for which
he was remarkable; if he stood still for a moment, the ground about him
was ploughed up with round shot.
About this time Colonel Cameron, of the 79th Highlanders, fell, as did
also Captain Irwin of the 88th Regiment. The death of the latter officer
was singular. He had been many years in the army, but this was his first
appearance in action. He was short-sighted, and the firing having in
some degree slackened, he was anxious to take a view of the scene that
was passing; he put his head above the wall behind which his men were
stationed, but had scarcely placed his glass to his eye, when a bullet
struck him in the forehead—he sprang from the earth and fell dead.
General Mackinnon and a group of mounted officers were behind the chapel
wall, which was the highest point in the village, and consequently much
exposed to the enemy’s view. This ill-built wall was but a feeble
defence against round shot, and it was knocked down in several places,
and some wide gaps were made in it. The general stood at one of these
breaches giving his directions; he attracted the enemy’s notice, and
they redoubled their fire on this point. Salvos of artillery astounded
our ears, at each of which some part of the old wall was knocked about
us; at one of these discharges, five or six feet of it was beaten down,
and several men were crushed. Colonel Wallace, of the 88th, was covered
with the rubbish, his hat was knocked off, and we thought he was killed,
but fortunately he escaped unhurt.
By two o’clock the town was comparatively tranquil. The cannonading on
the right of the line had ceased, but the enemy continued to fire on the
town; this proceeding was attended with little loss to us, and was fatal
to many of their wounded, who lay in a helpless state in the different
streets, and could not be moved from their situation without great peril
to our men—and they were torn to pieces by the shot of their own army.
Several of these poor wretches were saved by the humane exertions of our
soldiers, but still it was not possible to attend to all, and,
consequently, the havoc made was great. Towards evening the firing
ceased altogether, and it was a gratifying sight to behold the soldiers
of both armies, who but a few hours before were massacring each other,
mutually assisting to remove the wounded to their respective sides of
the river. The town too, as was usual in such cases, was not passed
unnoticed; it contained little, it is true, yet even that little was
better than nothing; and it was laughable to see the scrupulous
observation of _etiquette_ practised by our men, when any windfall, such
as a chest of bread or bacon, happened to fall to the lot of a group of
individuals in their foraging excursions. The following was the method
taken to divide the spoil, and as no national distinction was thought
of, the French as well as the British shared in whatever was acquired.
An old experienced stager or two took upon themselves the responsibility
of making a division of the plunder according to the number that were
present at the capture. This done, one of the party was placed with his
back to the booty, when one of those who had partitioned it called out
with an audible voice, “Who is to have this?” at the same time pointing
to the parcel about to be transferred, while he that was appealed to
without hesitation particularised some one of the number, who
immediately seized on his portion, put it into his haversack, and
proceeded in search of fresh adventures.
We had now leisure to walk through the town and observe the effects of
the morning’s affray. The two armies lost about five thousand men, and
as the chief of this loss was sustained by the troops engaged in the
town, the streets were much crowded with the dead and wounded. French
and British lay in heaps together, and it would be difficult to say
which were most numerous. Some of the houses were also crowded with dead
Frenchmen, who either crawled there after being wounded, in order to
escape the incessant fire which cleared the streets, or who, in a vain
effort to save their lives, were overpowered by our men in their last
place of refuge; and several were thrust half-way up the large Spanish
chimneys.
General Mackinnon, who directed the attack of the 88th Regiment, and
accompanied it in its advance, ordered it to retire to the position it
had previously occupied, and as he was unwilling to attract the notice
of the enemy too much, he desired that this operation should be
performed by companies. My company, or at least the one I commanded, was
the first to quit the town. As I approached the spot where Sir Edward
Pakenham was on horseback, he said, “Where are you going, sir?” not at
the moment recognising the regiment. I told him that General Mackinnon
had desired me to retire, but of course if he wished me to stay I would.
“Oh no,” said he, “the 88th have done enough for this day; but the
regiment that replaces you would do well to bring a keg of ammunition,
_each man_, in addition to his sixty rounds, for, while I have life, the
town shall not be taken.” He was in a violent perspiration and covered
with dust, his left hand bound round with his pocket-handkerchief as if
he had been wounded; he was ever in the hottest of the fire, and if the
whole fate of the battle depended upon his own personal exertions he
could not have fought with more devotion.
Lord Wellington caused the village of Fuentes d'Oñoro to be occupied by
five thousand fresh troops. The Light Division was selected for this
service, and it passed us about five o’clock on the evening of the 5th.
General Craufurd took the command of this post, and every precaution was
resorted to to strengthen the town; temporary walls were thrown up at
the bottom of the streets, carts and doors were put into requisition to
barricade every pass, but, as it turned out, those observances were
unnecessary, for Marshal Masséna, giving up all idea of success,
declined any further contest. Thus was the object of his movement
frustrated—a battle lost, and Almeida left to its fate.
Our wounded were removed to Villa Formosa, and Lord Wellington decided
upon diminishing his front. By this movement we lost our communication
with Sabugal, but we effectually covered Almeida, and still possessed
the pass of Castello Bom. At half-past nine o’clock at night, the
regiments which had so bravely defended Fuentes d'Oñoro passed us, as we
were about to lie down to rest; they were much fatigued, and we were
struck with their diminished appearance. The 79th Highlanders, in
particular, attracted our notice. We asked them what their loss had
been; they said, thirteen officers, including their colonel, Cameron,
and more than three hundred rank and file; and the soldiers were nearly
correct in their estimate.[13]
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Footnote 13:
The 79th, by the official return, lost 32 killed, 152 wounded, and 94
missing—a total of 278.
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The next day, the 6th, we had no fighting; each army kept its position,
and Villa Formosa continued to be the receptacle for the wounded. This
village is beautifully situated on a craggy hill, at the foot of which
runs the little stream of Oñoro. Its healthful and tranquil situation,
added to its proximity to the scene of action, rendered it a most
desirable place for our wounded; the perfume of several groves of
fruit-trees was a delightful contrast to the smell that was accumulating
on the plain below; and the change of scene, added to a strong desire to
see a brother officer, who had been wounded in the action of the 5th,
led me thither.
On reaching the village, I had little difficulty in finding out the
hospitals, as every house might be considered one, but it was some time
before I discovered _that_ which I wished for. At last I found it. It
consisted of four rooms; in it were pent up twelve officers, all badly
wounded. The largest room was twelve feet by eight, and this apartment
had for its occupants four officers. Next the door, on a bundle of
straw, lay two of the 79th Highlanders, one of them shot through the
spine. He told me he had been wounded in the streets of Fuentes on the
5th, and that although he had felt a good deal of pain before, he was
now perfectly easy and free from suffering. I was but ill skilled in
surgery, but, nevertheless, I disliked the account he gave of himself. I
passed on to my friend; he was sitting on a table, his back resting
against a wall. A musket-ball had penetrated his right breast, and
passing through his lungs came out at his back, and he owed his life to
the great skill and attention of Doctors Stewart and Bell, of the 3rd
Division. The quantity of blood taken from him was astonishing; three,
and sometimes four, times a day they would bleed him, and his recovery
was one of those extraordinary instances seldom witnessed. In an inner
room was a young officer shot through the head. His was a hopeless case.
He was quite delirious and obliged to be held down by two men; his
strength was astonishing, and more than once, while I remained, he
succeeded in escaping from the grasp of his attendants. The Scotch
officer’s servant soon after came in, and, stooping down, inquired of
his master how he felt, but received no reply; he had half turned on his
face; the man took hold of his master’s hand, it was still warm, but the
pulse had ceased—he was dead. The suddenness of this young man’s death
sensibly affected his companions; and I took leave of my friend and
companion, Owgan, fully impressed with the idea that I should never see
him again.
I was on my return to the army when my attention was arrested by an
extraordinary degree of bustle, and a kind of half-stifled moaning, in
the yard of a _quinta_, or nobleman’s house. I looked through the
grating, and saw about two hundred wounded soldiers waiting to have
their limbs amputated, while others were arriving every moment. It would
be difficult to convey an idea of the frightful appearance of these men:
they had been wounded on the 5th, and this was the 7th; their limbs were
swollen to an enormous size. Some were sitting upright against a wall,
under the shade of a number of chestnut-trees, and many of these were
wounded in the head as well as limbs. The ghastly countenances of these
poor fellows presented a dismal sight. The streams of gore, which had
trickled down their cheeks, were quite hardened with the sun, and gave
their faces a glazed and copper-coloured hue; their eyes were sunk and
fixed, and what between the effects of the sun, of exhaustion, and
despair, they resembled more a group of bronze figures than anything
human—there they sat, silent and statue-like, waiting for their turn to
be carried to the amputating tables. At the other side of the yard lay
several whose state was too helpless for them to sit up; a feeble cry
from them occasionally, to those who were passing, for a drink of water,
was all that we heard.
A little farther on, in an inner court, were the surgeons. They were
stripped to their shirts and bloody. Curiosity led me forward; a number
of doors, placed on barrels, served as temporary tables, and on these
lay the different subjects upon whom the surgeons were operating; to the
right and left were arms and legs, flung here and there, without
distinction, and the ground was dyed with blood.
Dr. Bell was going to take off the thigh of a soldier of the 50th, and
he requested I would hold down the man for him. He was one of the
best-hearted men I ever met with, but, such is the force of habit, he
seemed insensible to the scene that was passing around him, and with
much composure was eating almonds out of his waistcoat-pockets, which he
offered to share with me, but, if I got the universe for it, I could not
have swallowed a morsel of anything. The operation upon the man of the
50th was the most shocking sight I ever witnessed; it lasted nearly half
an hour, but his life was saved.
Turning out of this place towards the street, I passed hastily on. Near
the gate an assistant-surgeon was taking off the leg of an old German
sergeant of the 60th. The doctor was evidently a young practitioner, and
Bell, our staff-surgeon, took much trouble in instructing him. It is a
tolerably general received opinion, that when the saw passes through the
marrow the patient suffers most pain; but such is not the case. The
first cut and taking up the arteries is the worst. While the old German
was undergoing the operation, he seemed insensible of pain when the saw
was at work; now and then he would exclaim in broken English, as if
wearied, “Oh! mine Got, is she off still?” but he, as well as all those
I noticed, felt much when the knife was first introduced, and all
thought that red-hot iron was applied to them when the arteries were
taken up. The young doctor seemed much pleased when he had the sergeant
fairly out of his hands, and it would be difficult to decide whether he
or his patient was most happy; but, from everything I could observe, I
was of opinion that the doctor made his _début_ on the old German’s
stump. I offered up a few words—prayers they could not be called—that,
if ever it fell to my lot to lose any of my members, the young fellow
who essayed on the sergeant should not be the person to operate on me.
Outside of this place was an immense pit to receive the dead from the
general hospital, which was close by. Twelve or fifteen bodies were
flung in at a time, and covered with a layer of earth, and so on, in
succession, until the pit was filled. Flocks of vultures already began
to hover over this spot, and Villa Formosa was now beginning to be as
disagreeable as it was the contrary a few days before. This was my first
and last visit to an amputating hospital, and I advise young gentlemen,
such as I was then, to avoid going near a place of the kind, unless
obliged to do so—mine was an accidental visit.
Masséna, renouncing all hope of gaining any advantage by a fresh attack
upon our position, recrossed the river Agueda with his army, and left
the governor of Almeida to shift for himself. On the 8th and 9th we
heard several explosions in that direction, but although we guessed that
the governor was destroying some of the magazines previous to his
surrender, it never for a moment occurred to us that he meditated what
he afterwards executed with too much success. On the morning of the 11th
we heard, with the greatest astonishment, that the garrison, after
having successfully passed through our lines that encompassed the place,
had escaped, with trifling loss, by the pass of San-Felices, and
succeeded in reaching the French lines on the Agueda. This was certainly
the most extraordinary event that took place during the campaign, and
the regiments that formed the blockade afforded amusement for several
days to our men; the soldiers used to say that the regiment nearest the
town _was asleep_, and that the others were _watching them_.
The command of the army of Portugal was now transferred to Marshal
Marmont, Duke of Ragusa. Masséna returned to France in ill-health and
ill-humour, in consequence of the bad success of his combinations since
his elevation to the command of this army, which, it was confidently
stated, was to drive the English from the Peninsula. With the
qualifications of our new antagonist we were unacquainted, except that
having been for a considerable time aide-de-camp to the Emperor
Napoleon, we looked upon him as something out of the common way—a kind
of _rara avis_. However, we found him out before we parted with him.
For six days we had not seen our baggage, and were in consequence
without a change of linen. We lay among dirty straw for those six days.
I had no nightcap, and my socks scarcely deserved the name. But this was
not all; those who had beards—at this epoch I had not—suffered them to
grow to a hideous length, and their faces were so altered as to be
scarcely recognisable even by themselves. They might be compared to old
Madame Rendau, who, not having consulted her glass since her husband’s
death, on seeing her own face in the mirror of another lady, exclaimed,
“Who is this?” We all agreed that it would be delightful to bathe
ourselves in the river, and half a dozen of us walked out to the banks
of the Dos Casas. Having washed ourselves, we had a hankering for clean
linen, and as none of us could be brought to the opinion of the
Irishman, who said it was a charming thing when he _turned_ his shirt,
we proceeded to _wash_ ours, and as this was the first appearance of any
of us in the character of a _blanchisseur_, we all acquitted ourselves
badly, but I worst of all. In an unguarded moment I flung my unfortunate
shirt a little farther than the others did, and, not being quite as
light as the day it came out of the fold, it sank to the bottom, and I
never saw it afterwards. I soon discovered the cause of my mishap; a
small whirlpool (which at the moment appeared in my eyes little inferior
to Charybdis) carried it into its vortex, and left me shivering and
shaking like a solitary heron watching for a fish by the bank of a
river. This accident, however, happened at rather a lucky time; our men
had ransacked the French knapsacks with tolerable effect, and as soon as
my mishap was known to the men of the company, I was not long wanting
the means to supply my loss. At another time this might not have been a
matter of easy accomplishment, because it is well known in the army that
the men in my regiment were never remarkable for carrying _too great a
kit_.
The soldiers, as was their custom, made a display of the different
articles they had picked up: some had watches, others rings, and almost
all money. There cannot be a stronger contrast between the soldiers of
any two nations than between those of France and England: the former,
cautious, temperate, and frugal, ever with something valuable about him;
the latter the most unthinking, least cautious, and intemperate animal
in existence, with seldom a farthing in his pocket, although his pay is
three times greater than the others. A French soldier was quite a prize
to one of our fellows, and the produce of the plunder gained served him
for drink for a week, and sometimes for a fortnight!
I knew a soldier once make a capture of _thirteen hundred dollars_,
which having squandered, this same man, in less than a year afterwards,
was tried for his life for a highway robbery, and he would have been
hanged had not a Portuguese woman proved an _alibi_ in his favour. The
booty taken by him (for I am convinced the woman swore falsely to save
his life) amounted to six vintems, or about _eightpence_ sterling! Under
similar circumstances a French soldier would have hoarded up his
treasure, and, on his return home, dressed like a gentleman, and gone to
all the dancing-houses in his neighbourhood.